Getting OfflineIMAP latest versions to users

[Tomas Nordin]

> We’re working on snaps, a platform to enable ISVs to directly control

This sounds a bit strange, I thought our aim is to always let the user
directly control what software (version) they have on their machines.

> With snaps we could keep everyone up to date with the latest release,
> directly from github to the store. Snaps are easy to create (compared
> to some other packaging schemes) and automate. Indeed, attached is an
> example snapcraft.yaml file which would be consumed by the 'snapcraft'
> tool, to create a working offllineimap 7.0.13 snap. I'm using this
> locally myself.

It occurs to me that this idea is directed towards users who would like
the latest version of things, but are not very found of cloning a repo
and installing themselves. Very often this applies to me, although I do
like cloning and study things but I don't always have the time to do
that.

Say hello to apt, the Debian package manager. When I want the latest
version available through apt, I repeatedly find myself surfing around
for ways to do that. apt gives me some sort of comfort because I know it
will help me to completely remove a package for example.

I am on Debian Jessie on two machines, on one I have cloned and
installed myself offlineimap, it was very easy. On the other, I added
the line

    deb http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian stretch main

to install the latest package available, offlineimap 7.0.12, still 1
micro release away from latest. But that process is not really the way
it is meant to be done I think, there are long texts on how to handle
things like this properly on the net, it is exhausting, so I understand
where you are coming from.

What about working upstream with the debian and apt development, to add
an option to apt (without the hassle to tweak the sources lists) to
install the very latest package available of something. (For the
adventurous users.) Now for example, when having installed with apt the
latest package I could find of offlineimap, I need to comment the line
in sources.list not to affect other installs.

The apt suggestion here is obvisously naive, but you might get the idea.

The suggestion will still have a lag depending on how up to date the
package maintainer keep the latest package, but maybe that process could
be tweaked and worked on as well somehow. Possibly a similar process
that you have in mind but applied to the deb packaging.

Best regards
-- 
Tomas Nordin | (The computing freedom explorer)
GPG Key: AB09AF78